Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Part 108

Cowering at the bottom of the Lake, she felt its pain soughing through her, its unimaginable age.

Now she was hovering above the healing spring, watching the hands of the Viper Mage clawing the sacred clay.

Now she was bobbing on the water at the edge of the ice river, craning her neck at the ice wall glittering in the sun: such a fierce, hard, cruel blue. So blue . . .

With a cry, Renn awoke.

Her cramped muscles screamed as she lurched to her feet and staggered to the water's edge.

'I've got it wrong,' she whispered. 'It's not Seshru. It's the Lake that kills!'

THIRTY-FOUR.

The moon had set when Torak and Bale put in at a bay on the north sh.o.r.e of the Lake.

Three staring posts warded them off, and only the hope of finding some trace of Renn made them risk going ash.o.r.e after Bale had first offered a sc.r.a.p of dried duck meat on his paddle.

Searching the island by night had proved hard even for Torak, and the only sign they'd found had been one of Renn's prints near the reeds, and another on the Lake's northern sh.o.r.e. At the eastern end of the bay, he found more.

It was Renn's, he would know her footprint anywhere, but she hadn't been alone. Another track overlaid hers: slender, high-arched, the same shape as Renn's but longer. Seshru.

Torak rubbed a hand over his face. Renn had confronted the Viper Mage alone and at night, in this haunted place.

'What happened to her?' said Bale in a low voice. 'Did Seshru '

'I don't know,' snapped Torak. 'Let me think!'

They'd hardly spoken all night, except for brusque exchanges to determine where to search next, but Torak could feel Bale blaming him. He forced himself to concentrate on the tracks.

The trail of the Viper Mage led back into the Forest, then disappeared. More encouragingly, the upper part of the sh.o.r.e was crisscrossed with paw-prints. From the look of it, Wolf had been casting for scents.

'Wolf was with her,' said Bale. 'That must be a good sign.'

'Maybe,' muttered Torak. He scanned the sh.o.r.e.

Oh, Wolf, where are you?

He didn't dare howl, for fear of drawing Seshru. Her presence hung in the air, like the smell of smoke which lingers after a fire.

'But if Renn was here,' said Bale, 'where did she go?'

Head down, Torak traced her trail from the trees at the eastern end of the bay to where it ended. Then he did it again. Same result. The trail ended in the Lake.

Shutting his mind to the worst, he continued his search.

Over here, something had sc.r.a.ped through the mud into the shallows. Near it he found an alder sapling, its bark slightly worn in a narrow band, as if by rope. 'A boat. She found a boat moored to this tree.'

Bale blew out a long breath. 'That means she could be anywhere.' He flexed his shoulders. 'We need to rest. Start again when it's light. Otherwise, we'll make mistakes.'

I started doing that a while back, thought Torak.

To get away from the guardian posts, they took the skinboat round a spur of pines and put in at the next bay, then carried the boat a good distance up the wooded slope beyond the sh.o.r.e. Bale shared out a few strips of dried duck meat, and they ate in p.r.i.c.kly silence.

Dawn wasn't far off, but the Forest was strangely hushed. No frogs, no crickets. And no birds, thought Torak uneasily. Only Rip and Rek, who were making a nuisance of themselves picking at his gear.

From where he sat, he saw the flicker of campfires on the western sh.o.r.e. He guessed that the Raven Clan would be among them. Fin-Kedinn would have come in search of Renn.

'Torak,' said Bale, cutting across his thoughts.

'What,' he replied.

'I know she should've told you sooner.'

Torak set his teeth. For Bale to mention Renn was like ripping off a scab.

'But the fact that her mother is . . . I mean, it doesn't change that she's your friend.'

'What changes everything,' said Torak, 'is that she didn't tell me.' But inside, he was finding that harder and harder to believe.

'To carry such a secret.' Bale shook his head. 'What a burden.'

Torak picked up a stone and threw it at a tree-trunk. He missed. The ravens raised their heads and gave him reproachful stares.

'Although,' Bale went on, relentless, 'she's tough. Brave, too.'

Torak turned on him. 'All right! You've said what you want, now leave me in peace!' s.n.a.t.c.hing up his things, he moved off a few paces, then threw himself down with his back to Bale.

Wisely, the Seal boy left him alone.

Torak wasn't hungry any more, and although he was exhausted, he knew he wouldn't sleep. To make matters worse, Rip and Rek were being particularly annoying. Rek kept fluttering her wings, pretending to be a fledgling in desperate need of food, and Rip was pecking at his knife-hilt.

'Stop it,' Torak told him. Of course that didn't work.

He tossed Rip a sc.r.a.p of meat. The raven ignored it and made another attack on the knife.

'Stop it!' said Torak in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

'What's the matter?' Bale called softly.

Torak didn't reply.

Rip was staring up at him: not asking for food, just staring. His eyes were black as the Beginning, and his raven souls reached out to Torak's.

Torak glanced from Rip to the sinew binding on the hilt of his knife, then back to Rip. He turned his head and stared at Bale. He tried to speak, but no sound came.

The Seal boy saw his expression and came towards him.

Still without speaking, Torak drew the knife from its sheath and picked feverishly at the binding. It was tight Fa had renewed it the summer before he was killed and not even raven beaks had made much impression.

Without asking for an explanation, Bale handed him his own knife. 'Cut it,' he said.

Once the sinew was cut, it was easier to unpick. Torak's heart raced as he peeled back the final layer.

The trees stilled.

The Lake held its breath.

Sweat streamed down Torak's sides as he beheld the thing which had lain concealed for so many summers in the hilt of his father's knife. He tilted the knife, and out it fell onto his palm, from the hollow which Fa had cut to hold it. As Torak stared at it at this thing which was no bigger than a robin's egg, yet possessed the power to enthrall the demons of the Otherworld the sun crested the ice river and a blazing shaft of light struck deep into the cold red heart of the fire-opal.

Bale drew in his breath with a hiss. 'All this time.'

Torak did not reply. He was twelve summers old again, kneeling beside Fa.

'Torak,' gasped Fa. 'I'm dying. I'll be dead by sunrise.'

Torak saw the pain convulse his father's lean brown face. He saw the tiny scarlet veins in the light-grey eyes, and at their centres, the fathomless dark.

'Swap knives,' Fa told him.

Torak was aghast. 'Not your knife! You'll need it!'

'You'll need it more.'

Torak didn't want to swap knives. That would make it final. But his father was watching him with an intensity that allowed no refusal . . .

'Oh, Fa,' whispered Torak. He felt the fire-opal burning his palm with a searing cold. He stared into its fiery, pulsing heart.

Bale's brown hand covered the stone, shattering the spell. 'Torak! Cover it up!'

Torak blinked.

'She'll see it!' hissed Bale. 'Cover it up!'

Roused from his daze, Torak replaced the fire-opal in its nest, and wound his headband around the hilt to hold it in place. Only when it was safely concealed did they breathe again.

At last Bale said, 'How do we destroy it?'

Torak frowned. How could he think of destroying something so beautiful?

'Torak! How?'

Of course Bale was right. 'You've got to bury it,' Torak said in a cracked voice, 'but only earth or stone will do. And . . . ' he broke off.

'Yes?' said Bale.

'It needs a life buried with it. Or it won't stay dead.'

They didn't meet each other's eyes.

Torak thought about Renn, and how, in the Far North, she had been ready to give her life so that the fire-opal would be destroyed. He wondered if he would ever find the courage to do that.

He thought about all the times she'd risked her life to help him.

Suddenly, Rek gave a loud 'kek kek', and both ravens lifted into the sky with a clatter of wings.

Torak leapt to his feet.

'Listen!' whispered Bale. 'There's something down by the Lake!'

Straining his ears, Torak caught a faint trickling of water. Then a dragging sound, as if something were crawling out of the Lake then a squelching, stumbling tread.

Clutching their knives, they crept through the trees.

There, twenty paces below them in a shadowy clump of alders, something moved.

Torak felt Bale grip his arm as the thing lurched to its full height. Weeds dripped from its limbs and its streaming hair.

Bale turned to Torak, his lips bloodless. 'What is it?'

Torak glimpsed the pale arms hanging limp at the creature's sides. The band of rowanberries on one wrist. He rose to his feet. 'It's Renn!'

THIRTY-FIVE.

Renn saw them running towards her, shouting her name. Her knees buckled and she went down. Bale caught her by the shoulders. Torak took her quiver and bow.

'It's coming!' she gasped. A spasm of coughing seized her and she sicked up swampy Lake water.

'Where've you been?' said Bale.

She tried to reply, but more coughing took hold. No time to tell of that terrible moment when she'd foreseen the disaster which threatened them all; of her frantic dash to warn the clans, while the boat did its best to thwart her: spinning, bucking, finally pitching her overboard. And now Bale was kneeling beside her with no idea of the danger, while Torak was drying her bow with a handful of gra.s.s, and avoiding her eyes.

'You're safe now,' said Bale.